Lionator

300 surely gonna be too much on this wicket?

But less about the UK, what about America?

I’m massively against hollowing of the state and transfer of wealth into the richest people’s hands. Hence why I hate both Trump and Putin too. But I’m genuinely just very interested in Geopolitics.

The leaks from the Biden admin show that Vance is just saying the quiet part out loud. Yes it’s offensive and rude, but it is also true that Europe doesn’t have a credible plan, therefore the only logical thing to do is to stop the fighting and loot Ukranian resources between USA and Russia because there is no credible alternative.

Nailed it. This is where we’re heading!

Yes. Apart from the absolute redneck neo con types, the whole ‘new republicanism’ in the states is based around shifting the focus to the Pacific. They think Europe should be able to look after itself (it should) while they absolutely would support nato countries if attacked by Russians. Hence why they’re trying to manufacture a strategy which covers all of this. Read Elbridge Colby’s articles (who is now in the DoD). Mike Waltz is basically pursuing this. Ukraine is simply collateral damage. Biden had no strategy other than to keep telling Zelenskyy that he’d support him for ‘as long as it takes’ and incremental escalation that would’ve had to have stopped eventually. The bet Putin had, was always that Ukraine was more important to Russia than America and he was right.

Again, Trump is just accelerating the inevitable process in a horrible and brutal way. Even on Sunday with Starmer supposedly giving his Churchillian speech, he still went on about US security guarantees. The cold hard reality is the USA aren’t prepared to risk it all for Ukraine (and this is the same Biden) because Ukraine has little material benefit for them in the wider geopolitical scheme (unlike Taiwan but that’s a different story). Good article from yesterday https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/03/europe-trump-ukraine Do I agree with it? No. Is it fair? No. But it is what it is, that’s why when things are ended on terms favourable to Russia, we need to ensure that all other European states defence spending is adequate so even if Putin has a 1% urge to do something, he would absolutely regret it.

Yup, if the American economy continues to grow the way it has been for the past year, it’s going to be President Vance or Ivanka.

And if Putin tells his air force to fly over eastern Ukraine to see what happens and test the waters we have a choice a) engage Russia directly and all of the risks that come with that, but fulfilling our duties b) observe it and do nothing thus proving the whole purpose of being there is futile.

I’m firmly of the opinion that Russia only respects America. Delusions of grandeur but that’s probably where we’re at. They felt stabbed in the back with the change in direction on the Minsk agreements, despite being guilty of breaking them themselves. A lot of people tend to blame Putin but this is a sickness through Russian political society, Putin is just a manipulator of common viewpoints. I think there’s an opportunity for the US and Russia to agree something with Ukraine at the table of course. The frothing of wanting to fight Russians is once again insane.

Probably at a negotiating table (but I realise this will be an unpopular view).

Put it this way, for those with kids on here. How would you feel about them getting conscripted and sent to ‘defend Ukraine’?

Fulham, Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton I reckon. Fulham to win it.

I’m afraid Nottingham Forest are winning the FA cup.

so completely pointless, just a continuation of the war as Putin won’t agree to a ceasefire which involves British and French troops in Ukraine and we won’t intervene for obvious reasons.

Yes. My whole point is that we don’t need act hysterically and make any dramatic moves over this whole thing. Keep calm and carry on.

Do what we’re doing, give weaponry to stabilise the front lines, while engaging in forms of diplomacy with Russians (Americans can do this for us if we really, really don’t want to talk to Russians). Again it comes down to the idea that you either think Putin is Hitler pt.2 who wants to role through Europe, or is just another Russian tyrannical leader whose influence is actually very limited outside the Russian geopolitical sphere.

Therefore it’s not credible on a wider scale if it’s not credible to either the United States or Russia. I could credibly think that I could pull Sydney Sweeney but if that’s not a credible thing to her, then it’s not going to happen. It would be my job to make that a credible option to her. Throwing an underresourced British and French army onto the ground in the plains of Ukraine is not going to stop the war.

Seems like they’re going on their own little imperial adventure in Syria too.

Fair and credible are two different things though.

This is the best analysis on it all that I’ve seen.

So we keep saying to Ukraine that they can realistically take back Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk?? We should 100% be sending weapons to freeze the frontlines where they are. All of the European ‘peace plans’ involve one side of the war. The sad truth is Putin doesn’t respect us, but he would respect the United States and Zelenskyy knows this hence why he’s so desperate for security guarantees from them. That he’s not going to get. We’re lying to ourselves over and over again.

And yet only one out of the two of them has a semi-credible plan for ‘peace’. Giving Zelenskyy hugs and giving him a red carpet to Buckingham palace doesn’t bring us any closer to peace, it just prolongs the war by gaslighting Ukraine into thinking we’d actually fight for them and makes us feel better about ourselves while the Ukranian (and Russian) 20, 30 and 40 year olds continue to get killed en masse.

A war with Russia would be a damn lot more expensive than Iraq because you’d need to take measures at home. Iraq didn’t have the capability of obliterating the whole country in a few minutes for example (hence why even the mere thought of going to war with Russia is insane). Also, imagine what happens to the world economy when two nuclear powers start a war against each other. It would crash.

We’d want Russia to think they would but let’s be honest they probably wouldn’t. Not to begin with anyway. It would have to escalate. But again we’d have to work out what motivation Putin would have to actually try and attack Estonia. Because it would be an almighty and needless gamble now he has his man in the White House.